Re: Off-topic CD-R backup (+ xcopy32 attributes)

[Harry Binswanger hb@xxxxxxxx]

A couple of comments on xcopy32, which I've used for years for backup.
1. If you run it under Win, it goes much faster than if you reboot into DOS
(probably because Win has more than 640K in memory to work with). True, you
don't get some system files copied, but I don't think even doing it the
other way you'll get a bootable backup. But I never checked that.

2. You can get a complete list of the switches by doing:
xcopy32 /?
3. I use the /d switch for incremental backup (copies only files later than
equivalent ones on the backup).
4. If you are copying to a hard drive, as I do, I recommend first copying
the last backup to a "previous backup" location. That way, you have one
more level of protection. If this week's backup copied some corrupted or
virally infected stuff, you still have last week's backup. And with hard
drives today, space is usually not a problem.
Every Wednesday, I turn off the machine, slide the backup hard drive into
the drive-shuttle, boot up, and run this in a .BAT file.

xcopy32 d:\*.* /c /e /h /v /d f:\HBalte~1\  rem copy backup to prior backup
xcopy32 c:\*.* /c /e /h /v /d d:\  rem do backup
My .BAT file also does some housecleaning, like removing all .tmp files,
but the above is the essential.


Harry Binswanger
hb@xxxxxxxx